NatWest has hiked its interest rate for overdrafts for the second time in the space of three months, hitting customers who get into debt this Christmas.

The bank will charge customers an average of 17.44% for using their overdraft from January 2.

The latest increase means the average NatWest customer will be paying 2.48 percentage points more for going into their overdraft than they would have at the beginning of September.

A current account customer with an overdraft between £1,000 and £4,999 will pay 19.41%, compared to 16.79% at the beginning of September, while an Advantage Gold customer with the same level of debt will pay 18.19% instead of 15.59%.

NatWest is just the latest bank to increase its overdraft charge. Lloyds TSB announced its own second overdraft interest rate hike earlier this week, while the Royal Bank of Scotland, Smile, Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank have also hit customers.

The banks appear to be looking to raise extra revenue rates in anticipation of a clampdown on the sale of lucrative, but discredited payment protection insurance products. It is also expected that the Office of Fair Trading will limit what the banks can charge in penalty fees when customers borrow without authorisation.

Product comparison website uSwitch said that overdraft rate rises could earn NatWest £28.6m in revenue next year – a figure that the bank has dismissed as inaccurate.